When chickens, turkeys and other types of poultry are to be processed through a poultry processing plant for defeathering, evisceration, cut up and for packaging and delivery to the retail grocery store, etc. it is highly desirable to perform as many of the processing steps with automated machinery and with a minimum of manual labor, so as to minimize the expense of the process and to uniformly cut apart the birds.
In recent years, birds have been suspended by their legs by a suspended ("overhead") conveying system and many of the processing steps have been performed on the birds as they move in series on the conveying system. For example, the birds can be defeathered, decapitated, opened and eviscerated while being advanced progressively through a poultry processing plant on an overhead conveying system. It is further desired that the birds be segmented while continuing their travel on the overhead conveying system, so as to avoid the manual handling of the birds when performing the cutting functions. However, it is still common practice to remove the poultry carcasses from the overhead conveying system in order to cut apart the birds.
Recently, there have been a few efforts to form preliminary cuts in poultry carcasses while the carcasses still remain suspended by their legs on an overhead conveying system. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,574,429 discloses a poultry halving method and apparatus whereby the birds remain suspended by their legs on an overhead conveyor system as the birds are cut between the forward breast portion of the bird and the rear or saddle portion of the bird. However, the forward breast portion of the bird is permitted to fall uncontrolled to a receptacle or conveyor for further manual handling.
Additionally, when poultry products are cooked, it is desirable to cook the products rapidly so that the heat energy is conserved. Further, it is highly desirable to cook the products uniformly so that the thinner portions of the product are not overcooked and the thicker or more massive portions of the products are not overcooked. When the back of a poultry carcass is not separated from the thighs and legs of the carcass prior to being cooked, it is more difficult to uniformly cook the product. This is caused by the greater thickness of the product in the area of the joint between the thigh bone and back than, for example, the leg of the product. As a consequence, the cooking process must be performed at a lower temperature and at a slower rate in order to have the heat properly penetrate the massive portion of the thigh/back and uniformly cook this part of the bird.
In order to increase the rate of looking an undivided saddle or of cooking divided saddles where the thigh remains attached to the back portion of a bird, it is possible to separate or "open" the joint between the thigh and the back while the meat and tissue around the joint is stretched but not separated so as to reduce the density of the meat/bone in this area of the bird carcass so that the product will cook more rapidly. This opening or separation of the joint elements typically requires an additional step in the of handling the bird.
Therefore, it can be seen that it is desirable to provide an improved method and apparatus which performs the functions of cutting apart the previously eviscerated poultry carcasses as the carcasses are moved in series along an overhead conveyor system, and as the carcasses are cut apart, the pieces removed from the carcasses are received by and are automatically processed by equipment that continues to control the divided pieces so as to avoid further manual handling of the carcass parts.